The Tale of the Wandering Dragon
by wavemistress
Summary: Nodoka is tired of waiting for her husband and son to come home. She is sending her son a special birthday present.


**Disclaimer**

 _The following story is_ _NOT_ _canon. Aside from the character of Kinaga, all characters in this story are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. As I begin this fanfiction, I wish to express gratitude to her for the plethora of interesting characters in this series. I hope my use of them is as close to their original personalities as possible. If not, dear reader, please accept them as the mistakes of someone other than the original author. I also want to express gratitude to my husband and children who were so supportive as I rewrote this story, which I originally hesitated to publish. I hope you enjoy it._

 **Prologue**

The golden hour. Nodoka Saotome gazed out the open doors of the house into the garden, watching as the sunset gilded first the koi pond, then the nearby cherry trees and finally the wall beyond. She lifted her tea cup gently, sipping the steaming oolong she normally drank after dinner. As the sun dipped behind the garden wall she wondered, not for the first time, if she shouldn't have tried to sell this huge old house with the attached dojo and empty bedrooms that were doing nothing but gather dust and get herself an apartment when her husband and their son didn't return after sixteen years.

However, she could never bring herself to actually do it. This was the house she and her husband had bought following their wedding. She had loved it from the first visit. It reminded her so much of her father's house. She had imagined watching her children take their first steps in its garden, striving to prevent them from frightening the koi in its pond, fixing them meals in its spacious kitchen, eating the meals in its living area, seeing them off to school every morning with a thoughtfully packed and artistically fun bento packed in their school bags. She had imagined tucking her children into their beds at night. A single tear dropped from Nodoka's cheek into her shaking tea cup with a small plip. Carefully, she set the teacup down on the table.

Her husband had taken all of that away from her shortly after their son was born. They had arrived home from the hospital just in time for their families to surprise them with an impromptu party. Nodoka's family and friends had arrived the night before and cleaned and arranged the house. Genma's parents had arrived that morning. Everyone had congratulated Nodoka and cooed over the baby. Finally, Ranma had tired of all the attention and had begun to cry. Excusing herself, Nodoka carried her son from the room and began to soothe him to sleep, as she had seen her mother do with her sister. Downstairs, she could hear Genma shouting about something, but she ignored it. She'd listened to Genma brag about what a man he was the entire nine months of her pregnancy just because he'd managed to inseminate her on their wedding day. Nodoka had thought this was only more of that. She had just gently placed her sleeping baby boy in his new crib, when Genma came storming into the room.

"Who do those people down there think they are, babying my son like that?" he yelled.

"Genma!" she warned. "Hush! You'll wake him up!"

"He's the heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts!" Genma continued as if she hadn't spoken. "If he's babied his whole life, he'll grow up to be a… a…"

"Would you be quiet, please!" Nodoka whispered urgently, looking anxiously at her son, who was already beginning to stir. "I only just put him to bed. Besides, he was only born yesterday. Don't you think he deserves to be a baby for a little while longer?"

He stared at her in such a strange way that she started to wonder if her hair had suddenly changed color.

"Ranma is going to be the greatest martial artist who ever _lived_ ," Genma snarled.

"He's a baby," Nodoka repeated, shocked and furious at this sudden display of stubbornness. "At the moment, he needs to be the greatest _sleeper_ who ever lived."

"How like a woman!" he raged, gesticulating wildly. Ranma awoke at this and began to cry. "You don't care at all about the boy's future!" Nodoka gently gathered her son into her arms and began trying to soothe him again.

"You don't seem to care about our son's present, Genma," she frowned, holding Ranma on her shoulder and patting his back rhythmically. "He _needs_ to _sleep_."

Just then, the door to the nursery opened and Nodoka's sister came in. "What's going on up here?" she asked, sounding both curious and concerned. "I thought Nodoka was putting the baby to bed."

"In the name of all that's holy," Genma growled, carefully taking the crying child from his mother, "I swear Nodoka will never see our son again until I have raised him to be a man among men. If I fail, Ranma and I will commit seppuku."

A lot happened after that. Genma resolutely packed his knapsack and fashioned a baby carrier into which he tucked the still crying baby. Nodoka and her family had tried everything they could think of to change his mind, to no avail. The newborn boy still crying on his back, Genma had walked out the door, never once looking back at her. There had been a sunset remarkably like the one this evening, Nodoka reflected.

Eighteen years had passed since then. She hadn't hesitated to dismantle the nursery in the first week of Genma's absense. She hadn't wanted to be reminded of all the dreams the man had dashed with his hasty vow. She knew now that she needn't have bothered. Everything in the house reminded her of that moment. Even the sunset.

Nodoka sighed picking up the letter that had arrived with this morning's bills and rereading its characters once more. "It begins tomorrow," it said simply above her sister's sign.

"Happy birthday, my son," she whispered, wiping another tear from her face.


End file.
